The spring season looks pretty promising. There are a lot of shows getting second, third, or even fifth seasons, but there’s several new shows I’m looking forward to.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii is based on a really cute slice of life manga about a couple who are nerdy in different ways.

Persona 5 is more Persona 5.

Jikken-hin Kazoku looks like if the chimera family from FMA was slice of life instead of body horror.

If Golden Kamuy isn’t fantastic, I’m going to be upset because the manga is really good. The author also did a hockey manga called Supinamarada! that the hockey people here would like if more of it was translated.

Megalo Box has power armor boxing, so I’m down for at least a few episodes.

Fumikiri Jikan looks like another one of those cute five-minute shows.

I might or might not check out the Persona 5 anime but unless it is a really good retelling I’d rather just play the game again.

Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai might be fun, its an original romantic comedy anime which I find to be the better anime usually.

Ai Admirari no Tenbin is going to be a real toss up too. I’m a sucker for Taishou period pieces and aesthetics, and the art is gorgeous, but its based on an otome game and I’m not really interested in pretty boys.

Watched A Silent Voice tonight, a wonderfully animated movie by Kyoto Animation. At its core it is about bullying, regrets, empathy and reconciliation and executes greatly on those themes. Some of the early scenes where a bunch of kids bully the deaf girl are hard to stomach which I guess is the point. I also had a hard time with some of the characters later still not accepting their part in the previous events and trying to make amends, though that seems to illustrate that some people have a hard time living with their past mistakes, trying to lay blame on the victims.

In any case, this is a fantastic movie and I bawled my eyes out at the end.

Golden Kamuy the anime is basically the same as the manga. Which means that you should choose one (or both) and go for it. The manga is fantastic (and an excellent source of Ainu knowledge) and the anime seems to be the same as well.

Megalo Box (aka 21st Century Ashita no Joe) is also well worth your time.

I’ve been watching a lot of anime recently and because today was basically just a bunch of meetings at work I spent the time in between with updating MyAnimeList after about 5 years. I keep just a text file at home with my backlog. Anyway, after adding a bunch of stuff to my “plan to watch list” that list now sits at 175 items. Most of that is though because some stuff is split into several seasons which MyAnimeList tracks individually, and because I added every single series from the Noitamina block that I haven’t watched yet.

I’ll admit here that I’ve been rewatching Hidamari Sketch. Some of you are going to scoff, and yeah, it’s a “moe series” for the most part and there isn’t that much substance to it, but I have to say I kind of love this series. My rewatch has been primarily confined to one episode per day in the early morning, because the show is just so enjoyable and a really fun way to start a day. The OPs alone are just relentlessly cheerful, and the show proper also does its darnedest to keep the mood up. The way that SHAFT handled that series makes it so much more than the rather forgettable yon-koma manga it is based on with their excellent use of backgrounds and composition. One shot I want to highlight here is this one. Here Sae (the one in the chair) is having a minor fight with her sister who is visiting, and though there are other characters in the room, they are being blocked out so only the two characters remain in focus.

Now this isn’t a “must-see” anime, but it is genuinely interesting and enjoyable, and they keep things fresh with the structure where each episode is a random day outside of sequential order. This means that some story beats are hit and come into play again at a later episode, or are explained by a later episode that chronologically would have happened before. While there is little to no conflict in the show, these little interweaving strings do add a certain something to keep your attention.

Your need to defend yourself in the first sentence makes me really think there needs to be some rethinking on the automatic dismissal of “moe” and “cute girls doing cute things” slice of life shows. There’s nothing wrong with vicariously enjoying the sort of meandering, easygoing hangouts of a group of friends or enjoying a bit of light silliness. Is it high brow? No, but even here in the ivory tower there needs to be some understanding that its okay to enjoy “low art” and be free from being criticized for it.

Just finished Death Parade, a series I’ve heard good things about but never got around to watching until now. The main cast are so called “arbiters” who, with the backdrop of a fancy cocktail bar, have freshly deceased souls play games to judge their characters better and draw out “the hidden darkness”. It is quite good and an interesting excursion about life, death, how you earn “salvation” and who gets to decide that on what basis. And the OP is absolutely fantastic.

However, the show also had a couple of flaws. For one while the characters in the show decide on whether a given person is reincarnated or sent “to the void”, no explanation is really given what those two options entail until the second to last episode. I kept expecting that “the void” is actually turns out to be the desirable option. The show toys with Buddhist symbolism, but does not establish the possibility of reaching a Nirvana, though it also makes quite a point that the arbiters are deliberately withholding information from the people they judge.

The other problem I have is contained in the overarching plot so consider this a spoiler warning. In the last couple of episodes we find out that the assistant to the bartender, Chiyuki, was in fact human. This is treated as a sort of revelation, though the show kind of fails in making the viewer assume that she was an arbiter to begin with. At least I never did. Maybe they could have handled that better by showing how Decim “awoke” as an arbiter to begin with and drew parallels to Chiyuki in how they were placed in their positions, e.g. by paralleling how Nona explained the work of an arbiter to Chiyuki in episode 2 but with Decim in Chiyuki’s place somewhere around episode 6 or 7.

Another show I watched recently is Kakegurui, a gambling anime set in a high school for rich kids. I kind of like these sorts of gambling shows, from the king of kings in that subgenre with Gambling apocalypse Kaiji, to series like One-Outs and Liar Game. Unfortunately Kakegurui leaves a bit desired there. For one, while it showcases some kind of interesting games, it burns through those games way too fast and doesn’t let the tension build enough. It seems to race toward a conclusion almost, though unfortunately the season ends with what basically amounts to an anti-climax.

Another problem with the show is that the stakes almost don’t matter. Sure people talk about exorbitant amounts of money, but they might as well be chocolate coins for as much as people seem to value it. There are some gambling scenes with a wager involving bodily harm, but those are then undercut by the one making the wager having already completely seen through the game at that point.

The show still does some interesting stuff, particularly with its usage of facial expressions and colors, and just the indomitable sexuality radiated by its main character, but it unfortunately falls a bit flat with the regard of what it nominally sets out to do. It’s still a glorious piece of trash in a similar vein to Prison School.

Finally I’ve been trying to make my way through Steins;Gate. For the unaware the series starts with a main character hamming it up to portray himself as a “Mad Scientist”, and he and his friends stumble into actually creating a time machine with which they can first send text messages, and later memories into the past, which of course turns out to be a horrible idea.

Usually these kinds of shows should be up my alley, and I heard good things about this show, but I find myself a bit dreading to watch it. It’s not that the show is bad, but the pale color palette and the equally bleak attitude of the show makes it tough to enjoy it. It almost seems to me that it tries to make the viewer suffer alongside the main character but for me it fails in that and instead makes it into a slog. I also have no clue how after this show concludes they can wring a second season out of it, which started airing this spring.

Watched the first ep of Yakuza and psychic girl “Hinamatsuri”. Quick impression: Yakuza loves his vase collection. Psychic girl becomes a permanent house guest. Yakuza concedes to her demands or she will destroy his prize collection. The show follows a formula I’ve seen before but I’m not sure what to call it other a strange bedfellows team up. The Yakuza rather than immediately throw the psychic girl out his home, lets her live with him and he puts up with her odd and destructive behavior. Psychic girl could easily take over the city but is content with just eating snacks watching TV and go shopping. Was it funny? The joke at the end was kind of smirk worthy. I’ll probably watch one more and then move on to something else.

I was really hoping for crunchyroll to pick up Captain Tsubasa 2018. It was bought by VIZ media and I can’t find its legal streaming release anywhere.This is a shame since the classic anime was a blast, and this one is animated by David Productions.
Supposedly it will have two seasons, the first one re-telling the original middle school championship with 24 episodes. I think the classic show had 52 episodes, so this one is cutting all the filler from the classic show.
The second season will tell the story of the kids making their way into the Russia 2018 World Cup.
Someone really dropped the ball by not having this show legally streamed in the Americas.

In This Corner of the World is on Netflix. Incredible movie. A really endearing, slice-of-life that covers WWII Japan beyond just overwhelming oppression. The gradual escalation and how everyone adapted as time went on just made everything feel the most real. Love the animation style which is just distinct enough to be it’s own type of thing. It really made me feel how everyone was so down to earth so affected by their connected communities and families. The dub is pretty good even if a few performances are flat.

Really loved it, it would have been my 2nd favorite animated movie from last year behind Coco. Felt needed after I was disappointed by A Silent Voice.

I bought felt the need to own In this Corner of the World after watching it last year at Otakon.
I push back the tears every time I watch it.
I am really afraid of buying the manga is only because I don’t feel I am ready to read it.